This weekend saw none other than KSI & Tommy Fury fight on X Series 10 under Misfits Boxing, where Tommy secured a win over JJ. Despite the controversy surrounding the result, there are plenty of marketing insights fighters and combat sports brands can take away to optimise their content game across the digisphere. Let’s dive in.
Utilise betting-orientated content to boost brand awareness
Regarding live event marketing, sports fans are captivated by betting odds. This marks an opportunity for fighters and combat sports brands to customise and repurpose content they see from betting brands to benefit their brand.
It can be as simple as fighters making predictions for each fight and then promoting the best oddsmakers for fans to invest in if they’re interested in doing so. This is something that UFC fighters tend to do ahead of events when predicting fights, follow by example.
In the future, if played consistently, this can provide dividends in the form of sponsorship opportunities, media recognition and a boost in followers, which will boost marketing monetisation in general.
Don’t underestimate meme marketing
When it comes to the most shareable pieces of content across the web, memes are where it’s at. Therefore, match your content strategy to the algorithm of the internet to provide yourself the leverage you desire.
Many media outlets across the combat sports space will consistently promote fight updates throughout the event. Therefore, utilise this through their comment section on X to ensure you can captivate the audiences and fanbases they own. All it takes is one influential post you can capitalise on to make a real difference to your brand.
Create your own hashtags to generate brand awareness
This is a simple user-generated content post from a fan. However, it’s an opportunity for brands and fighters to recognise the value of creating your own brand awareness trackers that can be repurposed through other pieces of content from wider brands.
Capture live event footage via social media
Video marketing makes the social media algorithm go round and round. For that reason, ensure it’s a core part of your content strategy.
If you’re a fighter, it can simply be a matter of sharing your reactions after each fight via a video. Whereas if you’re a brand, it can be posting someone else’s video from a wider brand and then adding your own captions, branding and so forth to it, which makes it customised towards you.
Take lessons from how Anthony Taylor brands himself
Each time Anthony Taylor has a ring walk, it captivates a lot of attention. He’s clearly a very entertainment-driven personality, which makes him such a superb fit for the crossover boxing community, considering that is what the general audience tends to value the most.
From a marketing lens, I first noticed the colour pink, cowboy and cowgirl hats. Now stuff like this can be repurposed across your marketing channels through the likes of GIFs, captions, bios across your social platforms etc.
Ultimately, fighters can utilise similar tactics to optimise their own brand. For example, they can embed flags and emojis that represent themselves in their bios, including slogans and catchphrases in captions they produce through social posts, personal hashtags to promote their brands, and so on.
At first, it will feel like a task, but it will pay dividends towards growing your brand recognition in the long term.
Put your own spin on viral content
Following Deen The Great defeating Walid Sharks in their highly anticipated rematch, Deen had a lot to say on the mic, and it came with a smooth flow of marketability. To break it down, the fight took place in Manchester, then Deen took the initiative to refer to himself as ‘Deenchester’ alongside his commonly used catchphrase, ‘ya dig’.
It’s evident he potentially got inspiration from Mr. 50-0, Floyd Mayweather, when he attended Manchester ahead of his fight against none other than Ricky Hatton. This is proof that customising your surroundings towards your brand is beneficial towards growing your awareness and making your audience more engaged in you as a personality.
Think proactively about how you want your brand to be represented
Dillon Danis is probably one of the most controversial personalities across the combat sports space; however, the attention he garnered for his fight against Logan Paul was undeniable. Despite the fight being to a low standard to most combat sports fans, his game plan coming into the bout was clear as day from a marketing perspective. It was to create moments during the fight which can be shared across social media that will help to support his brand awareness, then translated into monetary gain alongside being discussed as a controversial topic.
As a fighter, you don’t need to be a controversial personality about optimising your brand at all. However, the point of sharing this case study is to focus on how you can think proactively at capitalising moments ahead of a fight and even during a fight to capture awareness and shareable pieces of content across your marketing channels that you can then repurpose in your favour.
Now that’s enough from me, do you think there’s anything else that I’ve missed out on?
Ash Sports Media 